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The Site C juggernaut rolls on. Why? We don't need the power. Site C is being built to frack gas.
We know fracking triggers seismic events. We know Site C will increase the province’s greenhouse gas emissions to such an extent the government's commitment to GHG reduction targets becomes impossible.

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On the one hand Premier Christy Clark lauds the efforts of the “stewards of this magnificent land” who came together to protect the Great Bear Rainforest in a historic accord reached in early February between Coastal First Nations, the provincial government, the forest industry and environmental interests.

OTTAWA — Members of B.C.’s lobbying industry, especially those with strong connections to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, are beating a golden path to Ottawa to engage with the new federal government. They cater to companies, trade associations and other entities who consider government decision-making so important to their well-being that they’re prepared to spend $5,000 to $25,000 a month to retain specialists in the so-called “government relations” industry.

Even for the South China Sea, where territorial disputes are hardly uncommon, it has been an eventful, and rancorous start to 2016. As members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met with U.S. President Barack Obama last week, reports surfaced that China has deployed surface-to-air missiles on one of the disputed Paracel Islands (known as the Xisha in Chinese). Beijing said the move is part of long-standing national defence policies on its sovereign territory.

B.C.’s troubled treaty process has been dealt another major blow with the announcement Thursday by a tiny First Nation along the Fraser River that it is suspending implementation of its agreement. The Yale First Nation is one of a handful of First Nations to complete negotiations with the federal and B.C. governments since the costly process began in 1992.

A small B.C. First Nation says it’s been squeezed out of its traditional territory around the Coquitlam River watershed and forced to file an aboriginal title and rights charter claim with the Supreme Court of Canada because the province won’t negotiate with it. The Kwikwetlem First Nation, which has only 85 members, was considered too small to enter into the modern treaty process and denied the right to sit at their own negotiating table to resolve their land claim, said lawyer Karey Brooks.

Vancouver-headquartered China Minerals Mining Corp. found out only after the fact that the province was transferring fee-simple ownership of Crown land where a subsidiary firm holds mineral claims to a company controlled by the Kaska Dena First Nation as part of an interim treaty arrangement. That is one of the reasons China Minerals and its subsidiary, Cassiar Gold Corp., have now filed a lawsuit against the province in B.C. Supreme Court asking for that transfer to be quashed and the company be given due consideration in any future arrangement.

Strange as it may seem, BC Hydro’s forced release of additional water from its Columbia River system to help address U.S. drought conditions downstream helped the Crown corporation meet its domestic power needs during last summer’s dry conditions. The Columbia River basin, including both Canada and the U.S., recorded the third driest year on record in 2015, Mark Poweska, BC Hydro’s senior vice-president of generation, said in an interview.

On Aug. 4, 1911, Dene Tsaa Chief Makannacha was the reluctant final signatory to Treaty 8, which covers an area larger than France. The Dene Tsaa (also known as the Prophet River First Nation) had a traditional territory estimated at 25,000 square kilometres. Under the treaty, it was given a reserve of just under 3.8 square kilometres.

The major event in Asian politics last week was the surprise announcement between two of the region’s most bitter rivals over one of the ugliest, most contentious issues stemming from the tragic legacies of the Second World War. But while officials in Seoul and Tokyo were describing the agreement last Monday as a “final, irreversible” resolution of the issue of Korean women forced into sex slavery (euphemistically known as “comfort women”) during the war, the reaction — especially in Korea — suggests otherwise.

I was speaking to a leading academic about Canada’s efforts to engage Asian countries when the topic of “track II diplomacy” came up. The term describes informal contacts between people representing different countries in the academic and other unofficial fields. The use of unofficial channels for presenting ideas has a long history in Metro Vancouver. It is logical, given the city is not the seat of either a federal or provincial government, yet carries significant clout as Canada’s Asia-Pacific Gateway.

As the First Nations treaty process slogs through its third decade in B.C., one of the continuing obstacles to progress is a challenge that the natives were expected to sort out without further assistance from the province or the federal government. “First Nations should resolve issues related to overlapping traditional territories among themselves,” was one of the dozen-and-a-half recommendations from the task force that launched the treaty process at the outset of the 1990s.

It has been a week since the 12 founding members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership put pen to paper in Atlanta, marking a historic economic accord. And while debate continues on the merits of the deal, the real question is now: “What’s next?” According to the top Canadian officials involved, the signing of the pact is just the beginning. Federal Minister of International Trade Ed Fast said that several other Asian markets are already chomping at the bit to join, despite the fact that the governments of the 12 founding members still have to approve the deal.

From mossy rainforest to sage brush desert, water pulses through B.C.’s First Nations cultures as powerfully as the tides, rivers and rains that shaped and sustain the landscape we all inhabit together, plants, animals and people alike. And if, as climate science suggests, the drought of 2015 is a herald of the future, water and First Nations’ prior rights to it promise to dramatically reconfigure the business and political landscape.

VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberals launched the latest summit with First Nations on a positive note Tuesday, naming a prominent native leader to find ways to reduce the number of aboriginal children who are separated from their communities and placed in foster care. Serving as senior adviser to government on the goal of establishing “forever families” for aboriginal kids will be Grand Chief Ed John, hereditary chief of the Tl’azt’en Nation in northern B.C. and a longtime member of the First Nations Summit.

Compared with Europe, where Second World War commemorations are mostly historic retrospectives, Asia’s events remain poignantly about the region’s continuing rivalries. The latest example was seen last Thursday in China, where a massive military parade was held to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Imperial Japan and the end of the war in Asia.

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